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Authorities said Sunday night that Los Angeles police fatally shot a man on skid row during a struggle over an officer’s weapons.

Police officials offered a detailed account of what they say prompted the Sunday morning shooting, which was captured on video by a bystander.

Cmdr. Andrew Smith said officers assigned to the LAPD’s Central Division and Safer Cities Initiative — a task force focused on skid row — responded to the location about noon Sunday after receiving a 911 call reporting a possible robbery.

UPDATE: Get the latest on the LAPD’s fatally shoot of a homeless man on skid row

Deadly LAPD shooting on skid row
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Deadly LAPD shooting on skid row
Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times
Ota Omoruyi, 53, who has been homeless for a year, places a cardboard sign on Monday at the site of Sunday’s deadly officer-involved shooting.
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Deadly LAPD shooting on skid row
Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times
A small memorial at the site of Sunday’s deadly officer-involved shooting.
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Deadly LAPD shooting on skid row
Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times
An LAPD patrol car drives by the site of Sunday’s officer-involved shooting.
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Deadly LAPD shooting on skid row
Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times
People gather at Pershing Square on Sunday to protest the police shooting of a homeless man. The man was killed by LAPD officers during a confrontation downtown.
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Deadly LAPD shooting on skid row
Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times
Patrisse Cullors, cofounder of Black Lives Matter, speaks to people gathered at Pershing Square on Sunday to protest LAPD’s fatal shooting of a homeless man.
Smith said the officers approached the man and made contact with him, at which point he “began fighting and physically resisting the officers.” The officers attempted to take him into custody and at one point, attempted to use a Taser that Smith said was “ineffective.”

The man continued to resist police, Smith said, and the man and some of the officers fell to the ground.

“At some point in there, a struggle over one of the officer’s weapons occurred,” Smith said. “At that point an officer-involved shooting happened.”

Two officers and a sergeant fired at the man, who was pronounced dead at the scene, Smith said. It was unclear how many times the officers fired, although at least five shots can be heard on the video recording that captured the shooting.

No other gun was recovered at the scene, Smith said. It was unclear if the man had any other weapons among his possessions — investigators were still combing the scene late Sunday night.

The man has been tentatively identified, but Smith said it was unclear if he was homeless.

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Two officers were treated and released for injuries sustained in the struggle, Smith said. The extent of those injuries was unclear.

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The woman seen in the video recording picking up an officer’s baton was detained and is expected to be arrested, Smith said. She had not been booked as of 9 p.m. Sunday, and it was unclear what charges she would face, but Smith said the arrest would stem from her picking up the baton.

Smith said that, based on the video recording, it was unclear what the officers told the man before they fired. He said investigators would use audio enhancement software to determine what exactly was said and when.

Fact-checking a chalk scrawl: How many people are killed by the LAPD?
Fact-checking a chalk scrawl: How many people are killed by the LAPD?
“Of course we’re aware of the video,” he said. “Any video that shows someone losing their life in an altercation with police is going to be disturbing. It’s disturbing for police officers to watch.”

“It’s always tragic when there’s a loss of life in one of these situations,” Smith continued. “It’s not an incident taken lightly by any police officer. But we are committed to everyone involved and to the public to conduct a thorough and complete investigation.”

Smith said investigators were looking for any other video that captured the incident, including footage from the body cameras some of the officers may have been wearing. Officers assigned to the Safer Cities Initiative were part of the LAPD’s pilot program for the new technology and are equipped with the devices.

At least one officer involved in the incident was wearing a body camera, Smith said.

The dramatic confrontation was caught on video, which was later posted on Facebook (the video contains foul language). It shows a group of officers getting into a scuffle with a man standing on a sidewalk littered with tents and other debris.

During the struggle, one officer drops his nightstick, which is picked up by a woman on the street. Two officers handcuff the woman.

RELATED: How many people are killed in officer-involved shootings? Some answers

The man continues to scuffle with four of the officers, even after he’s wrestled to the ground. What appears to be one of the officers is heard saying “Drop the gun. Drop the gun.”

Then, at least one of the officers opens fire on the man, who remained on the ground with at least two officers near him.

Five gunshots are heard on the recording.

VA details plan to eliminate veterans’ homelessness
VA details plan to eliminate veterans’ homelessness
Police have not identified the dead man or said how many officers were involved, or how many shots were fired. The man was declared dead at a hospital shortly after the shooting, which occurred about noon, according to police spokesman Sgt. Barry Montgomery.

He said that at one point during the struggle a Taser had been deployed, but investigators did not know if it was used on the man who was subsequently shot.

Witnesses at the scene identified the victim by his street name, “Africa”, and gave conflicting accounts of what they saw.

Dennis Horne, 29, said Africa had been fighting with someone else in his tent when police arrived.

When Africa refused to comply with a police order to come out of the tent, officers used the Taser on him and dragged him out, Horne said. The officers tackled Africa to the ground, where he continued to fight, which led to the fatal shooting, according to Horne.

“It’s sad,” Horne said. “There’s no justification to take somebody’s life.”
Another witness, Lonnie Franklin, 53, said five to six officers pulled up in three to four cars as Africa was lying face down on the sidewalk. The officers approached with guns drawn yelling, ”Down, down,” according to Franklin.

When Africa got up and started fighting, the officers “went straight to lethal force,” Franklin said.

But Jose Gil, 38 , said he saw the man swinging at the police and then heard one of the officers say, “Gun, gun, he’s got my gun!” before police fired multiple shots.

Another witness, who asked not to be identified, said the man punched and kicked the officers and reached for one of their service weapons before the officers fired at least seven times.

An area resident, who identified himself as Booker T. Washington, said police had come by repeatedly to ask Africa to take down his tent. People are allowed to sleep on the streets from 9 p.m to 6 a.m., but they are supposed to remove their tents in the daytime under a court agreement.

“This man got shot over a tent,” Washington said.
Ina Murphy, who lives in an apartment nearby, said Africa had arrived in the area about four or five months ago. He told her he had recently been released after spending 10 years in a mental facility, Murphy said.

Police Commission President Steve Soboroff first saw the video of the shooting via social media. He was watching it again when reached by a Times reporter Sunday evening, trying to hear what exactly the officers had said to the man.

“My heart just started pounding just watching it,” Soboroff said. “I feel the adrenaline. These situations are just so horrific.”

Homeless count
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Homeless count
Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times
Julian Castro, the U.S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development, meets with Jennifer Campbell – who is homeless – along L.A.’s skid row during the county’s homeless count on Jan. 29.
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Homeless count
Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times
U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, second from left, poses for a photo with a group of volunteers during the biennial count of homeless people and veterans in L.A. County.
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Homeless count
Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times
Volunteer counters sign up at the Los Angeles Mission at 303 E. 5th St. in Los Angeles on Jan. 29.
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Homeless count
Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times
Volunteers, including “Hiccups The Clown” and Lisa Blesa, right, listen to counting instructions at the Los Angeles Mission.
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Homeless count
Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times
Talk of funding and improved services to help get homeless people and veterans off the streets didn’t clear the tents and shelters along downtown L.A.’s skid row during the recent count of the county’s homeless population.
Soboroff said a key issue would be whether the man did in fact try to grab the officer’s gun, as some witnesses have told reporters. Otherwise, he said, it’s unclear what might have prompted the use of deadly force.

UPDATE: Get the latest on the LAPD’s fatally shoot of a homeless man on skid row

“To me, that would be the only explanation that something would happen that quickly,” Soboroff said. “It escalated. It escalated right in front of our eyes.”

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He stressed that the LAPD, the independent inspector general and the district attorney’s office would all investigate the shooting “very, very carefully.”

“Of course I would encourage people not to rush to judgment. It’s not fair to anybody. It’s not fair to the family of the victim or the victim or the officers,” he said. “We’ll find out what happened.”

Montgomery said Sunday evening that investigators were in the process of interviewing “loads of people” who were in the area at the time of the shooting. He said there would potentially be more video recordings of the incident, noting that he could see two surveillance cameras mounted on buildings at the scene.

It was still unclear how many officers fired their weapons or what was said to the man before he was shot, Montgomery said.

Montgomery said the video of the events leading up to the shooting appears to back the initial report that a Taser was used. He said the “click-click-click” sound that accompanies the use of the device can be heard on the recording.

According to a Times data analysis, there have been 12 fatal officer-involved shootings in downtown Los Angeles since 2000. There were none in 2014 and one in 2015 before Sunday’s violence.

Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable President Earl Ofari Hutchinson and other activists on Sunday called for a special police commission meeting on the shooting.

About 9:30 p.m., dozens of people gathered at Pershing Square to protest the police shooting.

“The heavens are crying right now,” said General Jeff Page, known around skid row as the “mayor” of the poverty-stricken neighborhood, as rains poured on the crowd gathered around him. He went over the events of the day that led to the fatal shooting of Africa, whom Page called “one of our loved ones.”
In the crowd was Yannick Babou, 34, a street vendor who works in skid row. Babou said he came out to show his frustration and anger with law enforcement.

“I’m not anti-police. I think we need police in society,” Babou said. “But I think we need to hold police accountable when they do something wrong.”

An Air Force Reserve captain whose family believe she was sexually assaulted in Afghanistan killed herself using her handgun.

Jamie Brunette, from Tampa, Florida, was found dead on February 9 by Tampa police in the back of her locked sedan near her apartment.

It appears the 30-year-old killed herself with her Smith & Wesson .380 handgun, which she purchased about six months earlier according to police, reports the Tampa Tribune.

The news shocked her family as Brunette, who left active duty after 11 years last June and joined the Air Force Reserve, had not shown any signs of being suicidal and was in the middle of opening her new fitness business.

‘She was so full of hope and wonderment and passion and excitement for life.’

To the outside world Brunette appeared happy – the week before her death she was posting photos of her studio being built with the caption ‘Doing work today!’.

It was due to open in a few weeks time and Brunette was part owner/part instructor.

But Leverich says she believes something traumatic happened to her sister in Afghanistan, saying the family noticed a change in Brunette on her return at her sister’s wedding.

‘She seemed upbeat,’ says Leverich, ‘but she wasn’t really giving us a whole lot of detail about life and what was going on.’

Leverich says she suspects that her sister was sexually assaulted in Afghanistan – she does not have any proof, but believes there was an incident.

‘I suspect she was assaulted, and she didn’t feel comfortable reporting it for some reason and internalized the incident so she could finish her deployment, which she did with flying colors,’ says Leverich.

‘It’s not anything she told me, just from talking with all her friends this past week, and piecing those things together.

‘I am female active duty, 18 years in the Coast Guard. I am well aware of those issues, and that’s my gut feeling.’

The following year Brunette left active duty and opted for the Air Force Reserve.

Air Force Lt. Col Kurt Spranger, her business partner told the Tampa Tribune: ‘I do not know the detail, but unequivocally I can say, yes, something happened, something that should never happen to a human,’ says Spranger.

‘Something happened and it was why she wanted to get out. So she wouldn’t have to deploy again.’

He said Brunettte had split with her boyfriend two weeks before her death, but she did not give any signs of being outwardly unhappy and was professional at all times.

The Hillsborough County medical examiner’s initial report states that Brunette had a ‘long tobacco and alcohol abuse history’ and was suffering from depression and anxiety.

Her roommate said Brunette had confided in her that she was seeking treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder from the VA and had been depressed.

The VA, citing privacy issues, could not comment.

A memorial page set up online has been inundated with comments.

One user wrote: ‘She was a wonderful, bright, positive, professional, Contingency Contracting Officer and Airmen. She was so young and so full of life and I feel great sadness from the squadron that loved her very much.’

Another user wrote: ‘I recently met Jamie at Orange Theory in Largo. I was so impressed while talking to her – articulate, respectful, courteous and interesting. She was full of life and excited about getting her business up and running.’

MailOnline has contacted the US Air Force for a comment.

To speak to a skilled, trained counselor, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 1800 273 8255.

A newly retired White Plains cop fatally shot his two teenage daughters and all three family dogs, then turned the gun on himself in the garage of their home Saturday, sources told The Post.

Glen Hochman, 52, who had retired only a few weeks ago, and his wife, Anamarie, had been having serious marital problems and, according to one source, had been talking divorce.

Police were called to the Harrison house at around 3:50 p.m. and found Hochman dead in the garage from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head. Hochman left a note at the scene, police sources said.

The slain daughters were Alissa, 17, a 12th-grader, and Deanna, 13, who was in the seventh grade. Found in their bedrooms, they’d been dead for hours, police said.

Anamarie, 50, and the couple’s eldest daughter, Samantha, had spent the day at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut.

Hochman was a 22-year veteran, said White Plains Police Public Safety Commissioner David Chong.

“The department is shocked and horrified by the news of this unfathomable tragedy,” Chong said in a statement. “We can only pray for the family.”

Just last May, Hochman won his department’s life-saving award for keeping an “unresponsive male’’ alive until paramedics arrived

Described as mild-mannered and unassuming, he was also a longtime volunteer with Harrison Emergency Medical Services.

“Both were lost to incomprehensible tragedy,” Harrison School Superintendent Louis Wool said of the slain sis

“In this awful moment, let us remember how proud we are of them,” he said.

Alissa had worked at a local catering company, and recently practiced driving in the neighborhood, neighbor Howard Hollander told Lohud.

“I remember seeing him walking his dog,” one neighbor said of the family German shepherd. “He was just a quiet guy — I’m tearing up just thinking about this.”

“She was an absolutely adorable, sweet girl,” said Hollander, who also described the ex-cop as “always friendly.”
“They were both sweet girls,” the neighbor said.

A recent family photo showed Hochman sitting on a beige couch with the doomed daughters, their smiling faces framed by long brown hair. He had a small white dog cradled under one arm, and the German shepherd looked on watchfully. The third dog was not in the photograph.

Amanda Knox got an early Valentine’s Day present this year, as her father confirmed to ABC News she is engaged to be married.

Knox’s fiance is Colin Sutherland, a friend she has known since middle school in Washington State.

They were pictured together last summer when Knox, now 27, was living in New York for a few months. Sutherland is a musician who lived in Brooklyn at the time.

They were engaged Feb. 3, her father said. Knox lives in Seattle and it is unclear whether Sutherland has moved back to the state.

Sutherland, now 27, was listed as a 2009 graduate of Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York.

Postings by one of the college theater companies shows him as a member in his senior year, and one of the school’s Facebook pages that highlights alumni work posted his band’s music video.

His band, The Johnny Pumps, is based in New York and is described as a mix of rock, “impure metal, and it’s cut with a punk edge that will make you want to dance.”

He is also part of a group called The Haunted Life, which plans to travel the country playing music and telling ghost stories with their first scheduled stops in Ohio and Kentucky.

According to his introduction on the group’s site, he has “lived and played music in parts of the US, France, and Nepal.”

For the time being, Knox appears to have settled back into her hometown of Seattle. She graduated from the University of Washington in June.

The legal saga surrounding the 2007 murder of her roommate while she was studying abroad continues in Italy next month.

Knox was initially convicted by an Italian court of killing Meredith Kercher but that decision was overturned on appeal in October 2011 after she had spent four years in prison. She was then reconvicted last year and an appeal of the appeal will begin next month.

Knox has previously told ABC News that while she maintains her innocence, she will not be traveling to Italy for the new appeal because if found guilty, she would then be sent back to jail.

“It really hit me like a train,” she said on “Good Morning America” in January 2014. “I did not expect this to happen. I really expected so much better from the Italian justice system. They found me innocent once before.

“I will never go willingly back to the place where … I’m going to fight this to the very end. It’s not right and it’s not fair,” she said.

60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon died Wednesday evening in a car accident in New York.

The CBS newsman was riding in a livery cab that struck another car and then crashed into a median on the West Side Highway, his network confirmed.

Simon, the recipient of 24 Emmy awards, began regularly contributing to the Sunday-night newsmagazine in 1996. He also was a correspondent for 60 Minutes II; when that series wrapped in 2005, he worked full-time on 60 Minutes.

Simon’s most recent piece for the series was a feature on the Academy Award-nominated film Selma.

A mother-of-three earns $65,000 a month from selling handmade headbands, socks and scarves on Etsy.

In just three years Alicia Shaffer has become one of the most successful sellers on the online marketplace with her store Three Bird Nest and now sells 3,000 items per day.

But it was all sprung from the need for a couple of headbands.

In 2011 Shaffer, who lives in Livermore, California, decided to make some hair pieces for her women’s clothing boutique.

Her creations were so popular the mother-of-three decided to start selling them on the online craft site.

‘I opened an Etsy shop, figuring I’d help pay for dance lessons or offset the boutique’s sales,’ Shaffer told The Organic Bloom.

Shaffer initially thought the high number of orders was due to the upcoming holiday season. But as Christmas passed and people kept buying, she widened her products to include scarves and leg warmers.

Just 18 months later Shaffer sold her boutique so she could focus solely on Three Bird Nest, now the second best-selling handmade product shop on the site, according to the Huffington Post.

But people may be surprised to find out that Shaffer has no background in fashion.

Although she has worked with leather for years, the crafter has figured out everything else through ‘trial and error.’

On Three Bird Nest’s separate online shop, Shaffer writes that she simply loves figuring out how to make different fabrics work well with each other.

‘I love textiles, fabric, fashion, designs, and seeing how different colors and fabrics pair together,’ she said. ‘You will find me with my little sketch book and notebook anywhere I go so that I don’t miss a moment to write down my next idea.’

The Etsy shop currently offers a wide variety of products, including more than 58 different headband designs that range from $16 to $37, as well as boot socks, scarves, hats, gloves, leg warmers, purses and accessories.

And the official website store has a larger selection of women’s clothing, baby apparel and home decor.

But one thing fans won’t find in the store is the color red – Shaffer’s not a fan.

On her site the businesswoman writes that she creates for a woman who is ‘sophisticated, yet fun’ and ‘loves fashion, but not being trendy’.

‘She’s a mom, a student, a daughter, a bride, a woman going on a first date.’

Shaffer believes that to be successful one must ‘eat, sleep and breathe’ their brand, and says she keeps going because of the love and passion her customers have for her items.

‘No matter how busy we get each time my Etsy app cha-chings I smile,’ she said. ‘I have had businesses that failed in the past, which is why this success is so much sweeter to me.’

‘I will not give up on seeing this brand grow.’

And she’s getting some help at home. Shaffer’s husband retired early from his job as a fire chief to help run the house, she told Yahoo!

But it’s her three children that ultimately are the fuel behind the mother’s brand – they inspired it’s very name.

On her arm is a tattoo of three birds in a nest, one to represent each of her kids.

A bogus cosmetic surgeon, who allegedly fatally injected a man with silicone during a penis enlargement procedure, is facing new charges.

Kasia Rivera, 37, from East Orange, New Jersey, had been due in court on February 27 on charges of reckless manslaughter and the unauthorized practice of medicine relating to the death of 22-year-old Justin Street in 2011.

However new charges were brought against Rivera on Tuesday after she allegedly illegally injected a woman with silicone.

Rivera, who had been out on bail on the manslaughter charge, was take into custody on Tuesday after the judge raised her bond to $200,000, NJ.com reported.

If she is released at a later date, Judge Ronald Wigler told her: ‘You are not to commit any new crimes whatsoever. You are not to inject anybody with any kind of needle.’

The bogus surgeon was arrested in December 2011 following the death of Mr Street who attended a ‘pumping party’ at her East Orange home.

It has been alleged that Rivera injected silicone into the 22-year-old’s penis.

Mr Street suffered a clot to the lungs owing to a a silicone embolism and authorities believe Rivera administered similar black market injections to other unsuspecting customers.

The 22-year-old’s death, the day after he received the injection, was ruled a homicide following an investigation.